Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions

Enchantment, as defined by bestselling business guru Guy Kawasaki, is not about manipulating people. It transforms situations and relationships. It converts hostility into civility and civility into affinity. It changes the skeptics and cynics into the believers and the undecided into the loyal. Enchantment can happen during a retail transaction, a high-level corporate negotiation, or a Facebook update. And when done right, it’s more powerful than traditional persuasion, influence, or marketing techniques.

Kawasaki argues that in business and personal interactions, your goal is not merely to get what you want but to bring about a voluntary, enduring, and delightful change in other people. By enlisting their own goals and desires, by being likable and trustworthy, and by framing a cause that others can embrace, you can change hearts, minds, and actions. For instance, enchantment is what enabled . . .

* A Peace Corps volunteer to finesse a potentially violent confrontation with armed guerrillas. * A small cable channel (E!) to win the TV broadcast rights to radio superstar Howard Stern. * A seemingly crazy new running shoe (Vibram Five Fingers) to methodically build a passionate customer base. * A Canadian crystal maker (Nova Scotian Crystal) to turn observers into buyers.

This book explains all the tactics you need to prepare and launch an enchantment campaign; to get the most from both push and pull technologies; and to enchant your customers, your employees, and even your boss. It shows how enchantment can turn difficult decisions your way, at times when intangibles mean more than hard facts. It will help you overcome other people’s entrenched habits and defy the not-always-wise “wisdom of the crowd.”

Kawasaki’s lessons are drawn from his tenure at one of the most enchanting organizations of all time, Apple, as well as his decades of experience as an entrepreneur and venture capitalist. There are few people in the world more qualified to teach you how to enchant people.

As Kawasaki writes, “Want to change the world? Change caterpillars into butterflies? This takes more than run-of-the-mill relationships. You need to convince people to dream the same dream that you do.” That’s a big goal, but one that’s possible for all of us.

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This review is from: Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions (Hardcover)

Marketing and leadership books are strange animals. Some are great and others make you want to stab yourself in the eye with a fork. Almost all, though, usually fall into one of two categories:

1. How to develop a large and successful business; and2. Why all marketers are liars

Enchantment by Guy Kawasaki is neither of these; instead, it’s a book about one thing:

Influence.

“How can I influence others without moral compromise?” is the question at the heart of Enchantment. And it’s an important one. There are a number of easy cheats to convince people to follow your leadership (carrots and sticks) or to buy your product or join your cause (incentives), but eventually those things always fail.

Why? Because they’re disingenuous. They don’t tap into people’s passions. They don’t move the heart.

And without that happening, whatever impact you have is fleeting at best.

In other words, be someone you’d actually want to spend time with and offer something that matters. These seem like concepts that should be met with a resounding, “well, I should hope so.” I mean, this seems to be common sense, doesn’t it? That’s thing about common sense, though. To paraphrase G.K. Chesterton, it’s not that common sense has been tried and found lacking, it’s that it’s been found difficult and left untried.

Unless you’re likeable, it’s extremely difficult to be found trustworthy. And unless you’re trustworthy, no one will rally around your cause, no matter how good it is.

Whether you’re in the for-profit or non-profit world, whether you’re in some form of vocational ministry or working for a huge conglomerate, who you are impacts everything you’re involved with. Our character can be the scent of life or the stench of death, and we would all do well to remember that.

The rest of the book tackles the implications of being enchanting, from launching your cause, overcoming resistance, using technology, how it plays out with employees and employers, how to make enchantment endure–and even how to resist it.

A key principle that resonated with me is that of endurance. Even if you have the greatest cause, it’s essential to remember that “enchantment is a process, not an event.” You’re working to build a relationship, not just get a sale or get someone to do something for you. And relationships take effort. This is something that is not easy for many in marketing and even in leadership positions to remember. The truth is, though, for many of us, it’s easier to try to squeeze whatever we can out of our market today, and not think about the long-term consequences (like having no market in the future).

This is where social media comes in handy, especially Facebook and Twitter (two resources that Kawasaki highly recommends). These two tools allow organizations and individuals to connect in ways that previously weren’t possible. And used well, they can allow you to truly enchant your customer or supporter base by engaging on their terms. Dell, among other organizations, fields support questions via Twitter (I know because an associate contacted me once after I complained about my previous laptop). This gives people a great experience with the company, even if they don’t like the product.

One of the challenges with social media, though, is finding the right mix of promotion vs. conversation. Kawasaki suggests that if around 5% of your content is promotional, you should be in good shape, but he’s also quick to point out that if people aren’t complaining, you’re probably not promoting enough (p. 115).

(Does this mean my Twitter followers will be seeing a shift in my updates? Probably, and hopefully for the better.)

Principles aside, the thing that caught my attention about this book is that it brought to mind people I know who are naturally good at this. They just seem to “get” that this is the kind of person you need to be in order to be successful. Take some time and look around your office, your school or whatever context you spend most of your day in, and I suspect you’ll see at least one or two people who are naturally “enchanting” as well.

So here’s the big question: Will this book help you to be “enchanting” in your sphere of influence?

Possibly. This isn’t a book that guarantees that if you follow these 8 easy steps, you’ll have more friends, better posture and piles of candy. What it does remind readers, though, is that the only way to really make a lasting impact on people is to act with integrity. That’s a big deal and advice we would all do well to heed.

If you have a chance, do pick up a copy of Enchantment. It’s definitely a worthwhile investment and…

This review is from: Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions (Hardcover)

If you read a lot of books you eventually run into the same material fairly often. That’s the case for me with “Enchantment”. While I generally admire Guy’s work, I was not enchanted with this book.

It is extremely basic stuff. Smile, firm handshake, don’t dress like a slob—enchanting? Steve McQueen and his wife are returning to LA from Las Vegas by car and she needs to relieve herself. There’s a line at the gas station restroom so she tells the gals in line that there’s a movie star out front—the crowd runs to see the stars and she takes a leak. That’s an example of creating a win-win situation. Well, next time I need to pee I hope there is a celebrity I can use nearby.

I’m not going to bother recapping the story about the TV producer who repeats that she just liked Howard Stern about a zillion times. (Puke)

Frankly, by mid way I had to resolve reading this book on an empty stomach. I find celeb stories dull and somewhat grating. Hell yes, if you’re Bill Gates you’ll be enchanting no matter what the hell you do. BTW, swearing is encouraged but must be used properly. (Bill Gates is my example)

Unless you can see the turnip truck that just dropped you off pulling away, skip this one.

Chris Reich(2 stars because the design is very good though the content is “see Flip run” basic.)

This review is from: Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions (Hardcover)

I am one of the many random people worldwide that received a complimentary copy of the book. And much as I feel grateful for the gift, I’ll be honest. The book did not enchant. It’s mostly a collection of tips that I’ve come across from various sources before this. What did not help was that the author re-wrote those tips in his own writing style (which is far from enchanting…actually it is tiresome!) It seems the author is more an entrepreneur than an original thinker or writer.

p.s. Btw, I got a link to a quiz on the author’s FB page that offered to tell me how enchanting I was based on my responses. After filling out some 25 questions I clicked the Submit button to see my results and got a message that asked me to ‘LIKE’ the author’s page BEFORE I could see my results. I was not enchanted.

p.p.s When I last checked, the quiz had been tweaked. You can now participate only AFTER you LIKE the page. Looks like the author still doesn’t get it.

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